Mikey Freedom on bump-in day for his new exhibition, Tempest. The two pieces are Love x Love – named after a favourite George Benson song – and a larger mixed media work, Intransigent Wound. Photo: Karen Lateo.
High-end Sydney restaurants display his art on their walls. Astute collectors commission his murals for their homes. His vivid work adorns several Kiama streetscapes. Yet if you ask the average Illawarra local about Mikey Freedom, the common response is, “Mikey who?”.
It’s an anonymity that can both frustrate and inspire an artist. For Kiama-based Mikey, it means he takes his name literally: freedom of expression is more important than recognition. Though recognition does help pay the bills.
That hip-pocket necessity made young Mikey, an Aussie-Scots kid from multi-racial Bankstown, become a schoolteacher. “I’ve always been an artist first – teaching was the sensible fallback that became the main job,” he explained, referring to his involvement in Sydney’s 80s graffiti subculture.
“I took up a career teaching art, and that was was my focus from the late 90s to the early 2000s, while my wife Sofia and I were starting our family. I taught in some of Sydney’s most challenging schools, including youth correctional facilities. It was fulfilling, but also punishing.”
There was a tempting possibility of escape: a Minnamurra weekender long held by Mikey’s family.
“I was a real surfie, dividing my spare time between Sydney and Kiama. By 2004, it was clear Sofia and I wanted to leave Sydney and make Kiama our home.”
But the long commute to a Western Sydney school was brutal, so Mikey called it quits.
“After a decade of balancing teaching with murals and exhibitions, I knew I had run my race with education. I was spent. It was time to devote my full energy to art.”
He believes graffiti art taught a generation of youth about colour, line and calligraphy. By the late 90s, street art encouraged even more experimentation. It gave Mikey, a passionate jazz and blues lover, inspiration for a new direction.
“I’ve been doing cutout graphics since 1990, influenced by the work of [American artist and author] Romare Bearden and the music of John Coltrane. For years, I persisted, even though it wasn’t accepted as readily as my paintings. Eventually, social media and mural festivals provided a platform for me.”
It made Mikey Freedom visible to more appreciative audiences. Since 2017, his art has been commissioned by such prestigious Sydney venues as The International, Continental Bar and
Deli, Bastardo and Nico. He’s done vibrant collaborations with European brands Sanremo Coffee Machines and Campari, held painting workshops at hip big-smoke spots and has
worked extensively overseas.
“It has been a long labour of love – I’m certainly not an overnight success!” Mikey laughed.
There has been much love in some of his labours: while his fame was spreading elsewhere, he quietly painted striking, colourful murals in his adopted hometown.
“Most of those local walls were painted for free, as my contribution to the community,” he revealed. They include the Scout Hall at Kiama Harbour, the surf club/toilet block at Jones Beach and the exterior of what is now Beck’s Café in Kiama Heights.
“One piece from 2018 remains hidden in a closed alleyway on Terralong Street – faded and largely unknown. That’s the nature of public art and the hardship for any artist painting publicly: the wall, like the building it is attached to, we do not own.”
That truth hit home in June 2023. Mikey’s Jazz mural, a bright, joyful 2017 tribute to the 30th anniversary of the Kiama Jazz & Blues Festival painted on the side of a charity shop, was whitewashed over as part of renovations. There was no warning and the community was outraged, but Mikey shrugged it off.
“When Jazz was painted over, I was disappointed and frustrated, but never angry. I was very touched by the community’s response, but I didn’t want any complaints to affect workers at the shop. I’ve learned to roll with the punches.”
In February 2024, he appeased local fans with Sunbather, his first exhibition in Kiama, at the eclectic Seven Marks Gallery. Like coconut oil and sunburn, it was an 80s Aussie beach holiday writ large, with ocean-themed canvases and even an old-school kiosk decked out with lolly jars and vintage magazines.
He’s since completed a commissioned Kiama mural, decorating the upper level of the Kiama Village shopping centre car park. He worked day and night, dressed in paint-spattered overalls, his trademark long surfie curls cascading from under a bucket hat. Locals thought he was a tradie, which was fine by him.
“I was just some bloke slapping a bit of paint on a wall. Barely rated a second glance. Now that’s true artistic anonymity!”
Mikey’s signature whimsy and mischief have matured into the darker palette of his next exhibition, Tempest, now open at Seven Marks. It has sprung from some tough recent personal challenges he won’t divulge – a reluctance that’s hard to reconcile with his usual open-book demeanour. This is a very different Mikey Freedom.
“I don’t want to sound pretentious, but Tempest is one of my most meaningful exhibitions,” he admitted.
“It’s about the ‘storm’ that comes to all of us; about living without a safety net and emptying your reserves for the sake of art – pouring it all out.
“I’m picking at my unhealed scars, exploring the hurt and trying to accept life for what it is: joyful yet terrifying, rewarding yet unsatisfying.
“But to say it is ‘just’ that is to overlook so much! It’s difficult to fully unpack in words; it must be seen to be recognised and, hopefully, understood. Nothing is hidden, but you must still go looking.”
Mikey Freedom’s solo exhibition, Tempest, runs until 2 May at Seven Marks Gallery, 7 Marks Street, Kiama. An Art Hour conversation with Mikey will be held on Saturday, 18 April.
